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Topic: Not your grandfather's tarantella: or Gentlemen/women do play the accordian (Read 1305 times)

There's been a revival and expansion of tarantella - which is thought to have its roots in Dionysian rites of over 2000 years ago - in southern Italy over the last couple of decades. Other musical styles and instrumentation have recently been incorporated into it also, making for some great, interesting music.

The instrumentation is highly eclectic with - traditionally - various types of tamborines, accordions (button and piano), guitars (chittara battente, spanish, classical), mandolins, ouds, fiddles, lira, shawns, flutes, clarinets (and sometimes horns), castanets, and bagpipes utilized. Piano, bass and modern drum kits have also sometimes been added, and some instruments are often electrified.

The dancing is not usually the circle type seen at weddings in this country but rather a single or couples (of any gender) dance with fairly intricate steps and a lot of grace and expressiveness. The music often builds in intensity (tempo, dynamics) and/or complexity (additional instruments and voices, pitch changes, ornamentation, and major/minor mode shifts). The vids range from very lyrical to very rhythmic in emphasis (at best, both at the same time). No phones, no tinny laptop/iPad speakers please: decent earbuds at least - or you'll probably miss some of the instruments and lines.

There's been a revival and expansion of tarantella - which is thought to have its roots in Dionysian rites of over 2000 years ago - in southern Italy over the last couple of decades. Other musical styles and instrumentation have recently been incorporated into it also, making for some great, interesting music.

The instrumentation is highly eclectic with - traditionally - various types of tamborines, accordions (button and piano), guitars (chittara battente, spanish, classical), mandolins, ouds, fiddles, lira, shawns, flutes, clarinets (and sometimes horns), castanets, and bagpipes utilized. Piano, bass and modern drum kits have also sometimes been added, and some instruments are often electrified.

The dancing is not usually the circle type seen at weddings in this country but rather a single or couples (of any gender) dance with fairly intricate steps and a lot of grace and expressiveness. The music often builds in intensity (tempo, dynamics) and/or complexity (additional instruments and voices, pitch changes, ornamentation, and major/minor mode shifts). The vids range from very lyrical to very rhythmic in emphasis (at best, both at the same time). No phones, no tinny laptop/iPad speakers please: decent earbuds at least - or you'll probably miss some of the instruments and lines.

Wow, I’m exhausted watching them dance. The ladies and their twirling and the huge crowd that looked like a rave (not that I’ve attended one). The intensity does indeed build as you say. Interesting blend of instruments and that horizontal accordion was quite interesting to see. It would be fun to see in person, but I’d be watching and not participating 😁

The first two are in Sicilian, the last in Griko (a language derived from Greek once common in parts of Southern Italy). Most of the others I posted were in various dialects of Sicilian (the language of much of Southern Italy before Italian became predominant) with a few in Italian.

There are hundreds of great Tarantula/Pizzica videos in all different styles on Youtube for anyone interested.

The first two are in Sicilian, the last in Griko (a language derived from Greek once common in parts of Southern Italy). Most of the others I posted were in various dialects of Sicilian (the language of much of Southern Italy before Italian became predominant) with a few in Italian.

There are hundreds of great Tarantula/Pizzica videos in all different styles on Youtube for anyone interested.

Thanks for the additional videos. It’s exhausting just watching them....... I didn’t have that much energy when I was a teenager:)

Rob don't feel bad. I am sure that only a very small percentage of those 300 views were made by actual real people. Most of the traffic we get on this site now is from web crawler programs scanning our posts to index them for search engines.

Rob don't feel bad. I am sure that only a very small percentage of those 300 views were made by actual real people. Most of the traffic we get on this site now is from web crawler programs scanning our posts to index them for search engines.

Is it like a ritual? It seems the dancer (the woman) in one of the videos is in an almost trance-like state. Like a dervish. Hmmm. Interesting. Since it is from Italy, there also likely a religious component to it.